Alternative Energy: Strawberry Guava

BevNET Review

Last Updated: 12/18/2009 4:43 PM

Strawberry Guava is, in our opinion, still the best tasting flavor of the Function lineup to date. Featuring a noticeably sweeter flavor than what we’ve come to expect from Function, the product’s fruity taste is reminiscent of a sports drink. It seems slightly better than we remember, with more pronounced strawberry and guava flavoring. It’s powered with natural caffeine that’s sourced from guarana and yerba mate as well as muira pauma and epimedium. It seems to have some kick to it, although certainly not as much as products that add straight-up caffeine. On the packaging front, this flavor, like the rest of the brand, has a new bottle as well as an evolved label design. Thanks to the larger “Created by Physicians” logo as well as other front panel text and visual changes, the resulting brand feels like something that is trying to play in the supplement space as opposed to the mainstream enhanced water or energy categories. In addition, we really dislike how they’ve reduced the emphasis on the flavor name, which is certainly a key part of the decision to purchase any drink. Ultimately, these moves leave the brand seeming better positioned to go into the supplement category than to help its presence in the beverage cooler. Our issue is that the mainstream flavor and functionality that are inside the bottle seem out of line with the revised, science-heavy presentation of this brand. Emphasizing the flavor and making it seem “normal” rather than “alternative” is likely to make the brand more appealing with consumers, who are already bombarded with brands that are struggling to create credibility around the science used to create the product. Unfortunately, that leaves us feeling like this latest revision might not be taking this product in the right direction.